Oregon-based Ideabox has collaborated with IKEA to create a new prefab collection which debuted this month at the Portland Home & Garden Show.

The collaboration introduces "Aktiv", the first in a new line of prefab houses designed by ideabox and appointed by IKEA.

Working with IKEA designers, ideabox designed aktiv around IKEA systems. In the kitchen, IKEA offers a lot of flexibility in kitchen cabinets. Ideabox designed the layout, and their clients can select the colors. IKEA appliances offer state-of-the-art cooking, so they included an induction cooktop and convection oven.

For those IKEA fans, the pure delight of walking and imagining their way through an IKEA store quickly turns to the daunting task of assembly when they get home. However, when your ideabox aktiv arrives, all of the cabinets, countertops, and flooring are installed.

The bath features a “huge” two sink vanity and four drawers along with a storage cabinet. The bedroom features the amazingly functional IKEA built-in series of closet systems.

Think of it as your own personal euro designer flat -only where you want it. Every bit an ideabox, from the energy efficiency to the cool assembly of materials, aktiv by ideabox truly is modern living made remarkably easy.

Jim Russell (above), owner and principal at Ideabox, has a background in energy, having worked for Oregon's Department of Energy and Energy Trust at Oregon. He's passionate about delivering energy-efficient homes — as long as they have a design edge. "We want our homes to be so rockin' cool that people just want them," Russell said. "No Birkenstocks, no flannel, no granola."

above: Jim Russell, ideabox owner, stands in front of the Aktiv at the Portland Home and Garden Show

The home gets a boost in its quest for maximum energy efficiency in part due to its small footprint. Aktiv is compact at 745-square-feet and carries an all-inclusive price tag of about $86,000. From order to delivery, an Ideabox home takes about eight weeks, with two to three of that in building time.

The exterior of the Aktiv in Portland:

The landscaping for the project was done for Ikeabox by Schutlz and Long Landscape Architecture of Portland. Recycled asphalt replaces gravel and water-efficient dwarf plants are fed by a drip irrigation system.

This is so odd, I simply had to share it with my readers. Super Doggies are a musical and 3D visual project created in 2012. The project depicts a "virtual band" of cartoon characters. This band has three animated dog members: Buffy, Abby and Bo and their universe is explored through the band's website and music videos, the first of which debuted today -and includes an appearance by President Obama. Other media will follow, such as short cartoons and an upcoming ‘live’ 3D tour.

Super Doggies are pursuing the dream to perform around the world, with the involvement of local communities, focusing on children. Concerned about their future, Super Doggies has focused its attention on the global issue of youth poverty. The Super Doggies are ‘good citizens’ who want to bring attention to the issue of poverty and work with local communities to highlight their plight. Super Doggies’s citizenship principles are founded on the conviction that the arts, business and social initiatives can, together, contribute to making a better world.

The press release:The guy behind Rango – which just won an Oscar for best animated feature film – will help introduce a new cast of animated characters with a political bent for this election season – the Super-Doggies.

The trio of singing Super-Doggies includes Barack Obama’s dog, “Bo,” Vladmir Putin’s dog, “Buffy,” and “Abby,” the dog of a South African girl, Imani, who lives in the slums of Johannesburg.

In the 3:45 music video, Imani watches from her house how both Obama and Putin care for their dogs. All Imani has is a raggedy stuffed animal. At one point she writes to both men asking them for a real pet – and in a fantastic scene that climaxes into a dance party featuring both dancing world leaders and their dogs – she gets her wish (Obama joins the action at 2:47)

The story is timely on multiple levels. Both Russia and the US have national elections coming up (March 4th for Russia and November 6th for the US). In fact, there have been several stories in Obama’s campaign promoting how well he treats Bo considering his competitor, Mitt Romney, once placed his dog in a kennel and strapped it on top of his car for a cross-country trip.

The work of Rango’s character designer, Eugeniy Yelchin is familiar to many of us. He designed Coca-Cola’s iconic polar bears, worked on the Film, “The Brothers Grimm” and also designed the opening for HBO’s “Rome.”

For this project, Yelchin teamed up with Grammy Award winning producer Neal Pogue who works with musicians like Nicky Minaj, Lil Wayne, Outkast and Pink. The effort is also getting guidance from marketing veteran Bruce Kirkland who directed The Beatles Anthology project, and has produced albums for the Beastie Boys, the Spice Girls, Radiohead, and Everclear. The overall project is the brainchild of producer Eugeniy Kuritsyn of Global Media Line, a Moscow-based creative producing house with an impressive line of talent to realize this vision. Eugeniy wanted to create a new entertainment product that would ensure collaboration between the best representatives of international entertainment industry.

Later in the year, the Super-Doggies will go on a world tour, featuring holographic dancing and singing dogs combined with the world’s best dance talent and circus performers. A portion of the proceeds will go to animal welfare organizations to encourage people to adopt dogs.

Tour dates and other information will be announced later in the year on the Super-Doggies website: http://www.super-doggies.com/ where you can sign up for the newsletter for updates.

Philadelphia ad agency Red Tettemer & Partners is reverting to the old 'sex sells' strategy (and taking pages from Old Spice and Charisma's playbooks) with their new campaign for Renuzit's Fresh Accents air fresheners. Pec-baring men are hawking the new designer air fresheners in 'After The Rain' and 'Rasberry' scents.

Titled "Hello Gorgeous," one of the most famous cinematic quotes in history from Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl (see below)...

...the campaign includes print, outdoor and online ads tagged “the first air freshener designed to look as great as it smells.”

The ads carry headlines like “Look at this gorgeous air freshener next to this gorgeous man” and “Now that is gorgeous and the man is not so bad either.” A 'Gallery of Gorgeousness' on Facebook allows you to share the following black and white photos of hunky guys posing next to the colored product.

The goal is to offer the buyers of air fresheners, who are primarily women ages 25 to 54, an “attractive” product that “fits into the home, something she wants right out there on the living room table” rather than hidden on a top shelf, says Eric Schwartz, general manager for laundry and home care at the Henkel North America unit of Henkel in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“If there’s one thing that gets the attention of the magazine reader, the online reader, in the cluttered, mundane world of air care, it’s attractiveness,” he adds. “It’s core to what consumers want to buy and use in the home.”

Inspired by the & T-shirt movement that started with Experimental Jetset's John&Paul&Ringo&George shirt, Fab is offering their own versions for lovers of modern design, modern art, pop music and fashion.

All the t-shirts are printed on American Apparel 50/50 cotton-poly blend and the posters are printed on 80# coated cover stock.

Both the T-shirts and the poster prints are available at the discounted price of $18 each (regularly $30 each) through Fab.com for a limited time only. The wonderful site is by invite only, so if you're not a member, feel free to use the link provided below.